I still consider him better than Shin Jinseo because he has a better head to head the last couple of years, but Jinseo has been winning a lot of games.

Ke Jie is playing Lian Xiao today, I think it's the first game of the 4th Qisheng title match. Zhou Ruiyang won the first edition and defended Lian Xiao's challenge in the 2nd edition, but not the 3rd. Ke currently only has 1 domestic title, the South-West Qiwang. Lian Xiao, Mi Yuting and Gu Zihao have 2 each.

Update: Ke lost by 1/4 zi. His attack on a centre group ended up neither killing or making much profit and yike bot estimated him 26 points behind at that time but he managed to make 2 invasions to make it closer but not enough.

What is 1/4 zi? I never heard of that term before

It's the unit of chines counting when you see how far Black is from 180.5. So double it to get point difference. (When you see Chinese komi described as 3.75 it's in zi).

Ke Jie won the second game by 2.5 points to set up a decider.

And Ke Jie won the final game by resign to take the Qisheng title. It was close and he was even behind for much of the middlegame but took the lead as the fighting reached a climax, maybe Lian was in overtime?

Yeah, Lian Xiao was on his last byoyomi, and Ke Jie mentioned post-game it influenced his decision to go for the complicated exchange even though he knew it was unlikely to work.

Ke Jie hasn't played much since he started university, but he beat Park Junghwan in the MLy cup to make the quarter finals, and yesterday beat Zhou Ruiyang by 1 point in the first game of the Chinese Chanqi cup final. The second game of the best-of-three is tomorrow.

Ke Jie won the 2nd game and thus the Chanqi cup. There were some ups and downs in the opening and early middlegame, but once the big stakes fighting erupted the variations were a knife edge between success and failure but Ke Jie was on the right side and ended up with a crushing victory.

Ke Jie is playing in the Chinese league finals right now Vs Ding Hao. He massively messed up a 3-3 invasion joseki after he tenukid and died (ladder doesn't quite work and yes he really played a8). Yikebot put him 20 points behind. But he fought back and now it's about even again!

Unfortunately Ke Jie couldn't quite complete the comeback and lost by 1.75 zi aka 3.5 points. Looks like it was a half point game to black in early yose but then his move 168 (see https://home.yikeweiqi.com/#/live/room/25547/1/23631265) was a strange mistake (was he scared of forcing move from centre if he blocks?) and 4 point loss says Yikebot.

Commentators on Fox undid the A8 move and blamed the game recorder . It was a tenacious fight but he dug too big of a hole.

There may be a need for a Ding Hao thread. He wasn't even in the top 50 to start 2019, very impressive year.

So, can anyone explain to me that A8 move? What did the bots think about it? I cant understand it at all.

It is a kind of probe (actually not working). If black answers at A9, the 3 stones in the center can be captured.

Ke Jie is off to a 5:0 start in this year's Chinese A League after beating Park Junghwan again. He and Shin are really separating themselves from the pack.

To be honest, it's Shin, Ke, and Park that are pulling away from the rest—the gap between any of those three players is greater than the gap between the ranked 4 to 10 players. It's really quite amazing—they are on another level(and Shin is in a league of his own right now!).

I wouldn't say Shin is in a league of his own right now. It might appear that way based on gorating scores, but it's mainly due to Shin being a lot more active than Ke Jie this year and winning 8 out of 9 games against Park. Maintaining such a high winning percentage is no doubt impressive, but Shin still has to prove himself against Ke Jie in the big tournaments, as he is now 3-8 after losing to Ke in LG cup this June. They have a chance to match up in Chunlan cup later this year.

I have been really impressed with Ke Jie since his return in June. Seems to be a lot more consistent in his end game than before. Studying at university certainly hasn't slowed him down.

Park is still great and continues to beat up on the other players, but he has lost the last 7 games combined against Ke and Shin, so based on the recent forms, I would put him clear 3rd.

Well, I mean, that's kind of like saying his rating is really high only because he's winning alot I would still say Shin more or less in his own league right now, seeing as his record this year is 48 wins to 4 losses—he's been on an absolute rampage.


I'm super glad about this as well. I was afraid that Ke Jie would prematurely fade from the Go world as he started University on a relative downturn in his playing career. I hope we can see him win some more world titles in the future

I was doing a search to see if anyone discussed why Ke Jie went to university. I didn't see a direct discussion of why, but saw that some other pros also did. Is it normal for top pros?

I don't know anything about pros going to college or university in Korea or China but it is not uncommon for pros to go to college in Japan. In the past it was relatively easy to make a living as a go pro, even for lower dan ranks. Since go pros usually become a pro in their teen years many pros stopped formal education after high school. I would guess that more Japanese pros are going to college nowadays because it is more difficult to earn a decent living just from go.